The volatility surrounding the collective-bargaining debate spilled into the night Wednesday when police were called to a German Village restaurant after a group verbally accosted a gathering of Senate Republicans.

After the vote on Senate Bill 5, seven Republican senators, including President Tom Niehaus, R-New Richmond, grabbed dinner at the Easy Street Cafe. As the lawmakers neared the end of their meal, a group of five to 10 union supporters angry about the passage of the bill hours before burst into the restaurant and began shouting.

The commotion eventually led to pushing and shoving with the restaurant staff and owner, before police arrived to calm the situation as a police helicopter hovered overhead. No senators were involved in the physical altercations, and no charges have been filed.

"It could have (gotten physical)," said Sen. Frank LaRose, 31, a Fairlawn Republican who served as a Green Beret. "The group was agitated and they were shoving the owner, and he had nothing to do with this." Story continues below Advertisement

LaRose said it didn't take special intelligence training to notice that while the lawmakers were eating, a woman walked past the window several times, poked her head in the door and got on her cell phone.

"It was planned," LaRose said. "They gathered as a group and waited until they had about 10 people before they caused a disturbance."

When the group burst into the restaurant, the woman, Monica Moran, deputy director of public affairs for SEIU District 1199, raised her hands in the air, yelled "Can I have your attention?" and then shouted "something nasty," LaRose said. Soon after, the rest of the group of men and women joined in with a chant.

"They stormed through my dining room," said George Stefanidis, owner of the Easy Street Cafe. "I told them they had to leave, and they wouldn't."

Stefanidis said he called 911 when the protesters refused to leave. LaRose said there was pushing and shoving with the restaurant staff. Meanwhile, someone on the outside slapped an anti-Senate Bill 5 sign on the window near where Niehaus was sitting.

"I understand their argument, but they should do that some other place," Stefanidis said. "It just ruined the whole night."

He said about 70 people were in the restaurant, at 197 Thurman Ave., at the time.

Witnesses said Stefanidis and his staff held the group back from the senators.

"I was tempted to help, but us getting involved would have escalated it, not de-escalated it. We decided to stay quiet," LaRose said.

Moran, who is married to a top researcher at the Ohio Republican Party, was unapologetic.

"It is unfortunate that rather than focus on the adverse impact that this legislation will have on hard-working, middle-class Ohioans, there are those who would choose to focus on a conversation I had with Senate Republicans," she said in a written statement to The Dispatch.

"The moment of discomfort Senate Republicans may have felt as a result of my expressing my opinion pales in comparison to the extreme discomfort and financial hardships that public employees will endure as a result of SB5."

Sens. Kevin Bacon of Minerva Park, Keith Faber of Celina, Larry Obhof Jr. of Montville Township, Chris Widener of Springfield and Gayle Manning of North Ridgeville also were at the restaurant. All but Manning voted in favor of Senate Bill 5.

The difference between Ohio and WI is that the Ohio GOP passed the anti-union bill. All the unions could do is throw their faggy hissy fit and couldn’t do anything about it except physical confrontation.

LaRose said it didn't take special intelligence training to notice that while the lawmakers were eating, a woman walked past the window several times, poked her head in the door and got on her cell phone.

....When the group burst into the restaurant, the woman, Monica Moran, deputy director of public affairs for SEIU District 1199, raised her hands in the air, yelled "Can I have your attention?" and then shouted "something nasty,"

...Moran,who is married to a top researcher at the Ohio Republican Party, was unapologetic.

When the group burst into the restaurant, the woman, Monica Moran, deputy director of public affairs for SEIU District 1199, raised her hands in the air, yelled "Can I have your attention?" and then shouted "something nasty," LaRose said. Soon after, the rest of the group of men and women joined in with a chant.

Anybody else noticing just how out of hand the opposition party has become lately (and supported by the MSM) Seems that we have reached a peak here where everything is okay if done by the Democrats (yes, none of this would be acceptable by the Republicans).

Either this is fast becoming the norm via the MSM or we are becoming a third world country...neither is a good sign.

So the disruptress-in-chief is married to a “top researcher with the Ohio Republican Party”? Um, I’d say it was time to let him go. He’s married to a union thug. Who knows what kind of sensitive pub party info could fall into her hands? I think she needs some repurcussions for her actions. A little unemployment pain in the pocketbook for the family might be just the thing.

He started his life and his union career in Puerto Rico. Back then, Rivera went by the name Dennis Hickey — using the last name of his Irish father.

In Puerto Rico, he honed his organizing skills as a Vietnam War protest leader and started two unions. In 1977, he moved to New York City, where he began his life’s work of organizing health care workers. Along the way, he took on his mother’s surname — Rivera . Today he cites his Puerto Rican roots as a major factor in his success.

“I come from a very small town where we basically have grown accustomed to listening to people,” Rivera said. “I think that’s it.”

In New York, Rivera started out at the bottom of the union food chain: as an organizer, a job with little glamour and little pay but, especially in New York City, a job that demands street smarts and maybe even a bit of hustling.

Rivera rose through the ranks. In 1989, just 12 years after he arrived from San Juan, he gained control of what today is Local 1199 of SEIU , the Service Employees International Union. That union includes 210,000 members — orderlies, cafeteria workers and clerks — who are some of the industry’s lowest-paid workers.

Rivera is also president of the New York State Council of SEIU , a 325,000-member umbrella group that includes 1199 Upstate, which represents 17,000 health care workers from Buffalo to Albany. He makes $103,000 a year — modest by the standards of downstate labor bosses.

Along the way, as Rivera rose to power, politicians learned all about his importance — especially those who relied on his help to make it into office.

In that category are former President Bill Clinton, New York City politicians, and U.S. Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Charles E. Schumer.

“If you want to have one guy in your corner,” Schumer said, “he’s probably the one.”

The DNC MSM has been trying their best to spike the petulant rudeness and vulgarity the government union thugs have been displaying since Scot Walker tried to make them behave reasonably. Now they are trying to hide the growing taxpayer backlash of disgust—with equal lack of success. All this is going to help make our 2012 landslide more like a continental collapse.

32
posted on 03/04/2011 2:52:07 AM PST
by Happy Rain
("Only God has more power than the Second Amendment to save America.")

MSM is in lock step with Democrat Party and Obama (their man). Sort of a liberal Democrat run media when Dems are in - or out - of control. Charged with supporting Dems blindly when they’re in power, and charged with attacking Republicans blindly if they’re ever perchance in power.

Probably might be wiser for GOP senators in WI to avoid restaurants, period.

Would you suggest they avoid congregating at other establishments if the same thing happened at those locations? Do they keep running and hiding every time they are confronted by a bunch of socialist thugs?

That tactic becomes a slippery slope with the result being those who are trying to enforce the legislative process constantly running from those who seek to disrupt the process. That will only empower the socialists. The better strategy is to shift the focus on the perpetrators by putting the spotlight on them for their transgressions.

In law, sedition is overt conduct, such as speech and organization, that is deemed by the legal authority to tend toward insurrection against the established order. Sedition often includes subversion of a constitution and incitement of discontent (or resistance) to lawful authority. Sedition may include any commotion, though not aimed at direct and open violence against the laws. Seditious words in writing are seditious libel. A seditionist is one who engages in or promotes the interests of sedition.

42
posted on 03/04/2011 5:55:02 AM PST
by EBH
( Whether you eat your bread or see it vanish into a looter's stomach, is an absolute.)

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